To view Part 1 of this article, click here.
PROBLEM: DATABASE MANAGEMENT
Try this:
Automate your database: In the Second Annual Campus Safety Mass Notification survey, 25 percent of respondents indicated that this was an issue for them.
The campuses that manage their databases most effectively tie in their student enrollment and human resource databases. UC Davis and UCLA, for example, upload to their vendors student, faculty and staff information every evening.
Additionally, these automated processes scan for students who are no longer attending and employees who have been terminated. “We are issuing more than 60,000 messages,” says UCLA Emergency Manager David Burns. “It’s easy for several thousand messages to become bad data in a very short timeframe. Sending out thousands of messages to outdated or inaccurate E-mails and cell numbers can create delay and bottlenecks. If you cannot manage the subscriber database using automatic, then you will likely be forced to hire a full-time data manager.”
Vendors can also help with this process. Some mass notification systems have a feature that discontinues sending a message to a device if it continues to not receive or reject messages. The system then communicates the problem to the recipient’s other devices.
PROBLEM: MANAGING MULTIPLE SYSTEMS
Try this:
Consolidate the activation process: Because every emergency alert system has its strengths and weaknesses, it is generally considered a best practice for a campus to have several modes of mass notification in place. Some institutions have 20 or more methods they use. If each of those methods has its own activation process, however, the amount of time it takes to send a message via each modality could be burdensome. For example, depending on who is working at the time, it can take Florida State University (FSU) between 13 and 20 minutes to activate all of its 27 systems.
To address this problem, many mass notification vendors now offer solutions that can alert campus communities via text, E-mail, digital display signs, Web site announcements, computer pop-ups and more. FSU Emergency Management Coordinator Dave Bujak warns that although this method is enticing, it creates one common point of failure. “If for some reason that third party vendor fails, you’ve just lost five of your alerting methods at one time,” he says.
Although not all officials at other campuses are as concerned about this issue, Bujak is weary of relying too much on vendors. Instead, his institution is creating its own “easy” button where multiple modes of alerts can be activated all at once. “We know that even though we’ve built our own mask for multiple systems, we still have independent systems,” he claims. “So, if for some reason our mask fails, we can still activate our system independently. If you’re using a third party vendor and their mask fails, you have no recourse.”
When shopping for mass notification solutions, campus officials should discuss this problem with their vendors to determine if they have adequate redundancy.
Click here to view Part 1 of this article, “11 Ways to Relieve Your Mass Notification Headaches.”
View the Mass Notification Survey results here
Tags: emergency alerts, emergency text messaging, funding, emergency management, risk management
